


Pay it Forward - Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes Style!

by Taurwen13



Series: Taurwen13's 2019 Holiday Adventures and Short Stories [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Presents, Diagon Alley, Feels, Gen, Shopping, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21634327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taurwen13/pseuds/Taurwen13
Summary: Young Nicholas is in tears as he watches his big brother get the Christmas present of a lifetime - a shopping spree where he can get 10 free items at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes - while he stands in Diagon Alley in a threadbare jacket dreaming of shoes that fit. None of this escapes the notice of Ron and George, who step in to make this Christmas different this year for the boys.Maybe their mom is right, and one day, some day, everything will be better.
Series: Taurwen13's 2019 Holiday Adventures and Short Stories [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534241
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Pay it Forward - Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes Style!

**Author's Note:**

> This was a particularly hard story for me to write. It's based partially off of my own experiences as a child, those of some of my peers that were a bit more less off than we were, and how my own son struggles in the face of our family's monthly struggles to balance rent payments, groceries, and electricity. At least here in this story I can make a happier ending for someone, even if I can't do so in my own life.
> 
> It's a bit bigger than I had originally intended - reaching nearly 6k when I had been trying to get most of these stories to stay around the 1k-2k range - and will probably be one of the longest stories I publish this month.

Nicholas watched as his brother Eldan ran through the house looking for his boots.

“We can’t be late, Momma! I don’t want to miss this. Where are my shoes?”

“Over by the back door, dear!” called their mother from somewhere in the living room. She came rushing into the kitchen, nearly knocking down the small branch they had up for their Christmas tree this year.

“Grab your coat, Nicholas, we need to leave.”

“Yes, Momma.” Rather dejectedly, Nicholas headed over to where he had hung his threadbare jacket from last year and pulled it on. His brother finished putting on his shoes and ran through the door to their Apparition point.

“Come on, Nicholas, I don’t want to be late! The Weasleys said I had to be at the shop at precisely 10am!”

“We still have plenty of time, Eldan. And you can’t go anywhere without me. I just need to make sure all the lights are off. It wouldn’t do for us to run out of electricity again before Christmas.”

Eldan was fidgeting from foot to foot as their mom finished one last sweep of the house.

“And, done. Alright boys, are you ready?” she asked as she stepped outside.

“YES!” yelled Eldan.

“Yeah,” Nicholas managed to reply.

“Oh, cheer up, Nick. Once we get your brother squared away, I’ll see about finding a new pair of shoes for you at the secondhand shop, okay? I think I have enough saved up for that finally.”

“Okay, Momma,” Nicholas mumbled through a faint smile. Shoes had been something he had been wanting for a while now, and on any other day he would be overjoyed. But not today.

“Hands, boys, hands! There we go. And three, two, one!”

A moment later, they were standing outside of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Eldan was already rushing forward with his golden ticket in hand, and Nicholas could just make out the Weasley brothers standing in the doorway of their shop. They stared as Eldan approached and whispered something between them, but Nicholas just assumed it was yet another person commenting on how poor they looked. They at least had the decency to smile, though, once his brother made it up to them.

“Ah, good, our tenth and final lucky ticket winner,” one of them announced with a grin, giving Eldan a high five. “Welcome. Come in, come in!”

Nicholas watched as his brother was led into the shop to pick out whatever ten items he wished. It was the perfect Christmas present for any of the ten lucky children in the Wizarding World each year selected by random that visited their store.

They had come to window shop back in August after getting some new-to-them clothes for school. Nicholas had stopped to tie his shoe before going in, and Eldan pushed past him. The moment he had stepped into the shop the lights started flashing, declaring he had been selected as a Christmas Spree winner. The whole family looked proud and happy for him, but Nicholas had felt mostly jealousy at the time. It had been yet another instances where his shoes had caused him problems – as if being teased and falling constantly at school hadn’t been enough reason to hate them.

Today, though, Nicholas was far from jealous. Today he felt an emotion far beyond what he knew an eight-year-old should feel – a gut punching anguish that caused him to almost collapse against his mother in tears. He was embarrassed to be falling apart like this outside of what was considered the coolest shop for kids to visit, but he couldn’t hold it back this time.

“It’s going to be okay, Nicky. One day it will be okay,” his mom tried to comfort him, straightening his hair and kissing the top of his head.

“Excuse me,” called a voice near Nicholas, “I couldn’t help but notice, you came here with one of our Christmas Spree winners, yeah?”

Nicholas turned towards the speaker, tears still streaming down his face, and waited for his eyes to dry enough to focus.

He stared in shock as soon as he registered a red haired, freckled face addressing him. “Yes. I mean yes sir. I did come with one. My brother, Eldan.”

“Yeah?” Mr. Weasley replied, turning back to look towards his brother, who appeared to be watching something inside. Nicholas noticed them nodding to one another before Mr. Weasley turned back to talk to them.

“So, Eldan is your brother then. Can I ask what your name is then?”

Taking a step back in shock, he struggled a bit to find the words to reply.

“Nicholas. My – my name is Nicholas, Mr. Weasley, sir.”

“Call me Ron – I’ve never really gotten used to being called Mr. Weasley. And what might your name be, miss?” he inquired, turning towards his mom.

“Carol. Carol Denton.”

“Carol. It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am. Can I have a few words with you in private? I don’t mean to intrude, but my brother and I would like to run an idea past you.”

“Sure, but I don’t know about it being private. I can’t leave Nicholas here on his own.”

Ron glanced back at his brother, who gave him a thumbs up.

“George can watch him, if that’s okay with you” Ron suggested. “It’s not going to break our budget if Nicholas here wants to pick out some stuff for his own. I promise I won’t delay you very long.”

“Well, if Nicholas is okay with that.”

Nicholas could hardly believe his ears. He was going to get to pick some things out, too? Really? This had to be a dream. He pinched himself to make sure he was awake and hear Ron chuckle.

“Go on, Nicholas,” Ron encouraged gently, “I promise George won’t bite. Hard.”

Nicholas laughed for the first time that day before bolting to the door of the shop.

“Hello there,” Ron’s brother greeted. “You must be Eldan’s little brother. My name is George. Come in and have a look around.”

“Hey! Hey, Nicholas!”

Nicholas turned to see his brother running up to him.

“You wouldn’t believe some of the new things they have in here for Christmas. Realistic rubber snakes that actually move, decoy book covers so you can hide what you are reading, a magical version of a Muggle cube twisting game that bites you if you take too long to solve it – and a ton more things. I was trying to pick you out a few things for you, but now that you are here, you can help me choose.”

“That’s not how this works, Eldan,” George explained. “You are only allowed to pick out things for yourself. That’s the rules.”

“But, sir, this is-”

“A very special day for you and you deserve to be able to pick out ten things for yourself. Ron and I have, however, decided that we can make an exception and let Nicholas here pick out his own ten.”

Nicholas was shocked. Ten whole things? He was expecting maybe three or four to keep him occupied while Ron talked with his mom, and he had never heard of a sibling also getting to pick. And would Eldan be angry and think his special day was getting cheapened? He didn’t have long to wonder.

“I – I don’t have to share my ten items? We both get Christmas this year?”

George looked a little teary-eyed as he started leading them through the store where the other 9 winners were still shopping.

“What do you mean about you both getting Christmas this year, Eldan?” he asked the boys as they approached the candy section.

“Well, you see, ever since Da left us, Momma’s been having a harder time paying for things. Last year, we each got a can of our favorite soup, some old Halloween candy, and a new pair of mittens like she knits us every year. And – hey, look, Nicholas, they have toffees that make you sing in funny noises as you chew them!”

“And they have licorice whips that really crack when you flick them. Brilliant!” exclaimed Nicholas.

“If you think that’s cool, come with me,” George insisted.

He led them up the stairs to a large display of toys where most of the other children had gathered.

“Open this up,” he suggested to Nicholas, tossing him a small tub that was filled with what looked like green glitter.

Cracking open the lid as directed, Nicholas watched in awe as a miniature fireworks display exploded from each sparkly grain.

“Comes in 6 different colors. You can even mix them up to make a multi-colored light show, but it doesn’t need all that much to make a good display. Last a long time, too.”

“Think fast,” yelled Eldan from the far side of the room. A ball of green goo came flying towards Nicholas and he was just barely able to catch it in time. As he did, it slung slime all over his face but stayed relatively the same density.

“I see someone found the slime balls. Perfect for snowball fights when there isn’t any snow.”

The other kids excitedly headed over to the slime ball display to try it out for themselves, leaving more of the room open for Nicholas to explore.

“George, what’s this?” he asked as he held up what looked to be a simple set of muggle bouncy balls like there Da used to give them but seeing as they were in this shop he highly doubted they were anything close to that.

“Oh, those? They are Bouncy Beats. Each color is a different instrument and as you bounce them they play different notes depending on how high and at what speed they bounce at.”

Nicholas noticed he seemed to hesitate before speaking again.

“Is this – is this really going to be all you get for Christmas? Aside from your mittens of course.”

George’s words took a moment to register with Nicholas as stared at the balls.

“Yeah. Momma’s had to miss a few shifts at her waitressing job lately cause we got sick and now the power goes out at our house sometimes, but we finally should have enough to get me some shoes today, and maybe a treat at the grocery store.”

“Power? You mean like as electricity? Do you live in a Muggle home?”

“Yes,” answered Eldan, wandering over to look at a display of psychic papers in front of Nicholas. “My Da is a Muggle. He got it for us before he left Momma and we haven’t been able to move out.”

“I see. Well then Eldan and Nicholas, I will leave you to your shopping spree while I take care of some business real quick.”

Nicholas nodded towards him in response before heading back down to the candy section. He was in the process of bagging a one pound bag of various symptom inducing candies from the barrels scattered around the room when Ron reentered the shop and headed over to him.

“Finding everything alright there, Nicholas?”

“Yes sir. So far I have two tubs of firework dust, a set of Bouncy Beats, and this bag of candy,” he replied while lifting the bag up for emphasis.

“Brilliant. Let me know when you have selected your other six items, yeah? I’m going to mingle around the other kids in case someone has a question, so if you need me, yell.”

Nicholas nodded. It didn’t take Eldan much longer to select all of his ten items – he had had an earlier start after all – but soon Nicholas had caught up with him. He had a few kinds of candy, a handful of new toys, some various invisibility clothing items, a couple of Muggle inspired secret agent items.

“There. Got everything you wanted?” Ron asked as they met him by the front door.

Eldan and Nicholas nodded their heads excitedly.

“Good. Now, would you two like to go shopping with George and I? Your mom is taking a short break nearby to relax, and we wanted to offer ourselves as an escort for a special holiday tour around Diagon Alley.”

“But Momma’s the one with our budget and our money,” Eldan tried to explain, but George held up a hand to silence him.

“Don’t you worry about that right now – you are way too young for those kind of concerns. Where would you like to go first?” Receiving blank stares from both of the boys, the Weasley brothers led the Denton brothers down the street to Madam Malkin’s. The bell above the door made a faint tinkling sound as they entered, but other than that it was surprisingly quiet.

Nicholas had never been in here before. They had always gone to the second hand shop or, before Da had left, various odd shops in Muggle London for their clothes. He looked over at Eldan and saw the same look of awe radiating from his face that he was sure was on his. He couldn’t figure out what they could be getting in here, as all they knew about being sold in Madam Malkin’s was robes – and Eldan wasn’t supposed to start at Hogwarts until the following year.

George and Ron just stood patiently waiting for the shop owner to appear, and after what seemed like forever a squat woman dressed all in mauve came out of the back.

“George! Ron! What a wonderful surprise. Are you hear about those dress robes you ordered for the Christmas Gala? I had hoped I would have a bit more time to work on them but-”

“No, don’t worry about that,” Ron explained, “we aren’t here to rush you. Actually, I was hoping you might still have a few of those small travelling cloaks left in the back.”

“But of course! I still have plenty – thick, warm ones that can keep out the grime and muck of London off and partially self-warming.”

“Good!” George exclaimed. “We’ll take two – one for each of these boys, and I’ll be back by with their mother later for another cloak.”

“Very well. Now, come here little ones and I’ll size them for you.”

“Size them?” asked Nicholas, confused. All he could imagine were rows and rows of factory made clothing mixed up with various sizes being racked together. “They aren’t already?”

The seamstress chuckled softly. “No, my dear, they are going to be stitched to fit you and your brother’s unique shape precisely so you can stay warmer. Stand right here and I will show you.”

Nicholas stumbled forward a little to where the witch had instructed him to, and watched as all kinds of measuring devices he had never seen before moved around him as Madam Malkin wrote down various lengths and widths on a small notebook.

“Uh-huh, good, good. Now you deary,” she instructed, turning to Eldan and directing her tools towards him now. “That’s it. I’m done. I’ll have their cloaks done in about 30 minutes dears.”

“Thank you, Madam Malkin, it is a pleasure,” George insisted with a bow.

The seamstress laughed, filling the room with glee. “Oh you two, get out so I can work.”

The two sets of brothers joined in laughing as they headed back out towards the street.

“Now where to?” asked George. When neither Eldan nor Nicholas answered, he continued. “Well I picked the last store so Ron can pick the next one. Which shop would you have wanted to visit when you were our age?”

Ron gave George a momentarily sad look before unsuccessfully trying to smile

“I know I would have loved it if Mum could have gotten me some new clothes. The ones I got from you and Fred always seemed to be a bit too baggy on me.”

‘ _Wait_ ,’ thought Nicholas, ‘ _what would these two know about hand-me-downs? They are probably the richest people here on Diagon Alley!_ ’

He didn’t have long to think before George grabbed his hand.

“Then off to the clothing store!”

The Weasleys then led them to small shop around the corner on Horizant Alley that sold upscale children’s clothes. These were much thicker than the clothes Nicholas was used to, and they didn’t have any holes in them yet. There were also multiple sizes of each style, so if he liked something his brother was looking at, he didn’t have to wait for him to outgrow it.

He turned to George in surprise. “Are you sure this is all okay? You’ve already gotten us robes and stuff from your shop-”

George became quite serious as he held up his hand. “Stop right there. We already told you, it’s fine. Exactly how old are you, Nicholas?”

“I turned eight last month.”

“Eight,” George repeated with a sigh as he glanced back to Ron, “That is way too young to have to worry about adult things like money and where the things you need are going to come from. Right now, I just want you to focus on getting what clothes you like – not what’s cheap, not what you think we should buy you, but what you, Nicholas, would want to wear.”

“I’m gonna step out a minute, George, if that’s alright. You think you can handle these two troublemakers while I’m out?”

George laughed and clamped his hand down on his brother’s shoulder. “Go. I’ve got them. You finish up what we need done and I’ll meet you back at the shop, okay?”

Nicholas was certain he saw them wink at each other but couldn’t figure out why. He tried to focus on the clothes despite feeling overwhelmed most of the time. In the end, he settled on a couple of cardigans, a few long-sleeved T-shirts he found in the muggle section of the store, two pairs of jeans, and a nice pair of trousers that should last him for a while.

It was then he realized that come spring he was probably going to be back to second-hand clothing all over again, and he had to stifle a cry.

George had still noticed. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, dropping down on one knee so that he was level with Nicholas.

“This is all really nice of you and Mr. Ron, but what are we going to do next spring for clothes, and next fall – especially when Eldan goes to Hogwarts.”

“Yeah,” piped up Eldan, who seemed just as distressed as his brother was feeling, “We are just going to go back to getting ridiculed at school for our clothes and such once we outgrow this lot. It will at least keep us warm this winter, I guess.”

George put a hand on Eldan’s shoulder, and then Nicholas’. “Don’t worry about that right now. I know it’s hard, always having to look ahead and plan for the next problem, but right now I want you to enjoy the now and trust Ron and I to figure out some other things. Now, Nicholas, what were you telling me that you were looking forward to getting today?”

A faint glow of excitement started to warm Nicholas as things clicked. “Shoes! I can get shoes?”

George laughed as he stood up and took each boy by the hand. “Yes, you can both get some shoes. Come on, I know the best store here for them.”

He led them to a small storefront labeled ‘ _The Cobbler’s Bench_ ’. Even before they opened the door, they could hear the loud thwaps of a hammer hitting leather. George opened the door and led them inside.

Every square inch of wall had been covered in shoes of all kinds – mostly leather boots, but there was a sizable amount of trainers, Wellies, and others dotted among them in all shapes and sizes. To the back was a short counter that spanned the entire width of the store that was covered in what looked like dragonscaled boots, and behind it in the very center of the wall was left just enough room for a small doorframe covered in the back with a piece of leather. It was behind here it seemed that the hammering was taking place.

To Nicholas, it was almost more amazing to look at than Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.

Almost.

“Callum?” he called, receiving no answer over the hammer blows. Louder, George called again, “Callum? CALLUM O’NOLAN YOU HAVE VISITORS!”

The noise stopped abruptly and soon a small, cheery fellow of indeterminant age emerged from behind the leather flap and leaned on the counter.

“Good-day to you, Georgie. How is your little venture with your brother holding up?”

“Quite well, Mr. Callum. Today, though, we are showing these two young ones around Diagon Alley and was wondering if you might have some shoes that would fit them.”

“Of course, my dears, of course. Let me come on out and see what we have to work with.”

A section of the counter lifted up to let Callum come through to where Nicholas and Eldan were standing, stopping short about a meter away from them.

“Goodness – those shoes have seen better days.”

Nicholas noticed him look up to George with a sad, almost pained look, but he missed however George reacted as Callum immediately conjured up stools for both him and Eldan to sit on before observing their shoes. He snapped and instantly the shoes were gone.

“Now that those are gone, let’s see what we have to work with.”

There began a loud chorus of reactions as the small man recorded more notes than even Madam Malkin had – and this was just for their feet! Finally, after a particularly loud “my-oh-my”, he took a step back to look at his notes.

“Right, then, one moment while I check what I have in the back.”

As soon as he disappeared from the room, the boys looked at each other.

“There’s more in the back?” Eldan whispered to Nicholas.

“How many shoes do you think are in here?” asked Nicholas.

Before he could answer, the leather flap opened again as Callum stumbled forward with a large stack of shoeboxes. Setting them down between where the two boys were sitting, he pulled the first one off and showed them to Eldan.

Inside were a pair of brown boots, the color of which reminded Nicholas of the very best chocolate he had ever eaten, lined in a thin black faux fur, and accented with the exact shade of red he knew to be Eldan’s favorite.

“Well, lad. What do you think?”

Eldan stared drop jawed for a moment before replying, “These are perfect!”

Callum chuckled. “Let’s see them on your feet before ye make that kind of declaration.”

He snapped, and instantly the boots appeared on Eldan’s feet.

“Walk around on ‘em a bit while I try your brother’s on for size,” he encouraged before turning his attention to Nicholas, who was trying his hardest to sit still while he waited to see what was in the next box.

“Calm down a wee bit there, laddie. At least wait until you get a good look at the boots before ye get all excited.”

He lifted the lid and Nicholas instantly felt like these had been made for him. Unlike his brother’s, these were grey like heather and perfectly matched his eyes, a little taller of a cut at the ankle than Eldan’s had been, with a thin liner of white faux fur on the inside, completed with black trim and laces. He knew just by looking at them that they would fit him perfectly.

Nicholas almost cried. This was all so overwhelming. When his mom had told him they might be able to get him shoes today, never in a million years would he had though something like these might exist.

With a smile, Callum snapped his fingers and a warm, cozy feeling encased Nicholas’ feet. He stood up and gingerly took a step forward, and then another. His feet didn’t hurt when he walked. In fact, it felt more like he was walking on clouds than wearing shoes. Soon he was running excitedly around the shop, only stopping when he heard his brother ask a question.

“What are the other shoeboxes you brought out for, Mr. Callum?”

Nicholas stopped. In his excitement he had forgotten the rest of the stack sitting next to his stool. He moved quickly back to where his seat was and tried to control his excitement this time.

Callum and George chuckled. “Alright, I’ll open the others for ye. Hopefully you’ll like them as much as ye seem to be enjoying yer boots there.”

He placed two boxes in front of Eldan and two boxes in front of Nicholas. With a snap of his fingers, Callum made the lids of the boxes disappear, reveling two pairs of trainers for each of them.

One of Nicholas’ was made of the same color grey as his boots, but with blue trim, and the other one was made of white leather trimmed in black. Eldan had a matching pair of white trainers, but his other pair was the same shade of brown as his boots but trimmed in a lighter brown.

“There, now. That should keep yer feet happy for a good long while. I charm my children’s shoes with a bit of a growing spell, so they should fit ye for a few years.”

“I – I don’t know what to say, other than thank you!” Eldan exclaimed.

Nicholas tried to show his gratitude as well, but a lump in his throat got in the way.

“Seeing the looks on your faces was thanks enough for me. Now, go on and finish your rounds through the shops – don’t let a little old cobbler like me steal all your shopping time.”

“Slán go fóill, my friend,” George replied with a nod.

“And good-bye for now, to you as well,” returned the cobbler.

George led them out of the shop and back up to Madam Malkin’s.

“Your traveling cloaks should be done by now,” George informed them, “and then, unless you want to stop by one of the bookstores for a bit, we can go meet up again with your mom.”

“Books!” shouted Nicholas excitedly before realizing it had slipped from his mouth. He quickly covered it with both hands as Eldan and George started laughing.

“I guess that settles it then. We get your cloaks, and then we go for one last shopping spree at the bookstore.”

Madam Malkin was waiting for them when they came in. She placed their new cloaks around them to make sure they would fit and, after altering the hem slightly on the bottom of Eldan’s, they were off to the bookstore.

“Hey George!” bellowed Ron from outside Flourish and Blotts. “Everything has been taken care of, how are you three doing?”

“We were just about to head in to look at some books,” explained Eldan.

“Books? Well, what kind of books do the two of you like to read?” Ron asked as they headed into the shop.

Eldan managed to answer first. “Well, as I’ve been going to a Muggle school and Momma hasn’t had much time to help me, I’ve been trying to read spell books so I understand magic a bit more.”

“Oh. That’s…not what I had expected,” admitted George, “but I’m sure we can find you plenty here. What subjects do you prefer?”

George walked off with Eldan, leaving Nicholas with Ron.

“What about you, Nicholas? What kind of books do you collect.”

“Oh, I don’t really have a collection. I mostly read at school. We have a couple of children’s books at home, but most of the ones we own are cookbooks, and I’ve read them lots of times already.”

“Cookbooks?”

“Yeah. Momma used to cook all the time before Da left. Now she’s lucky if she has the energy to make food when she gets home from work. Eldan and I do what we can, but it’s nowhere near as fancy as what she can make.”

“What do you read at school, then?”

Nicholas could feel the excitement welling up in him as he tried to talk, and it was making it difficult to form words.

“Mostly stuff my teacher recommends. It’s all Muggle stuff, but I really like it. The last thing I read was this book called _Wind in the Willows_ and before that was _The House at Pooh Corner_.”

“Hmm, I haven’t heard of any of those I’m afraid.”

“Oh,” replied Nicholas sadly.

“But I know what I read at your age. Have you ever heard of the _Guardians of Twilight_ series?”

“No. What’s it about?”

“It’s a fantasy series about these random adventurers that get drafted to protect a special place called Twilight that exists on the edge of our world. Its magic is what fuels our natural order. Without it, plants won’t grow, the sun won’t rise – stuff like that.”

“Cool! I’d love to read it.”

“Right. One book series coming up.”

Nicholas followed Ron to the children’s section and was shocked when he pulled a stack of seven books from the shelf.

“I get all of that?” he asked with wide eyes. “That’s more than we have on our whole shelf at home!”

He saw a bit of a pained look wash over Ron’s face before he smiled again. “Yeah, I’d give you my set, but it belonged to my older brother, Charlie, and by the time I got it it was more than a little beat up.”

“You had hand me downs? But – but you guys have the best shop here in Diagon Alley-”

“George and I haven’t always had the store. Back when he and my brother opened it, the only way they could was after they had an investor pour a ton of money into it. My family had seven kids on one government paycheck. Dad made do with what he could, but Mum’s the one that really stretched it. I was the youngest boy in the family, and nearly everything I owned had belonged to someone else in the family first.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. That or it came from the second-hand shop. That’s why George and I wanted to make this Christmas special for you and your brother – you reminded us of how we felt at your age and we wanted to help out. And we aren’t done yet – we still have a few tricks up our sleeves. Now come on, I see George is already helping your brother check out – let’s head up there ourselves.”

Nicholas followed Ron to the counter and saw that George had pulled all the first-year textbooks for Eldan to start studying.

“Oh cool, you got him _Guardians of Twilight_ , huh?” George observed. “You gonna let Eldan read that when you are done? I bet he’d enjoy it.”

“Sure! I’d love to share my books, if I can get a look at those textbooks a bit, too.”

“Deal!” yelled Eldan before being shushed by the cashier.

They had been in such a hurry to look at each other’s books that Nicholas didn’t even see how much the books had cost. They couldn’t’ve been cheap, but neither had anything else that day.

“Come on, your mom is next door at Fortescue’s getting hot chocolates for everyone. I think she might have a surprise of her own for you.”

Nicholas looked over at Eldan with a puzzled look before heading out the door to the next shop. As Ron had told them, there was their mom up at the counter holding five steaming hot mugs of hot chocolate.

“Thanks Momma!” yelled Nicholas, “but how are you paying for that?”

George and Ron chuckled.

“How about you tell the, ma’am.” George suggested.

“Oh, you two are so sweet. Eldan? Nicholas?”

“Mmhmm?” they mumbled through their drinks.

“George and Ron here have hired me as their cashier so they can have more time inventing. They have really been needing the help it seems. It comes with an apartment over the shop that’s even bigger than the one we have now, and we aren’t going to have to worry about things anymore. I’ve already moved all of our stuff in with their help, and we’ve made arrangements to let you two still attend your school so you won’t miss any of your friends.”

“Really?” asked Nicholas.

“You missed the best part!” exclaimed Ron. “We also need a couple of product testers and if you guys are going to be around anyways…”

Eldan dropped his mug hard onto the table.

“We, what?”

“Yep. Part of the deal is that you two have to help us come up with new ideas and test them out. Unless you don’t want to…”

“NO” yelled both boys.

“I mean, no, we would love to help you out,” clarified Eldan.

“Yeah, we’d love to!” Nicholas added when he could.

“Then that’s settled,” replied their mom. “I’ll start in the morning since you seem to get extra busy this time of year. That is, when you aren’t shutting down for shopping sprees.”

“Well, we aren’t quite done…we do have one more Christmas present for the boys,” explained Ron. “It’s not something they need like the other stuff we bought, but after seeing them throw slime balls in the shop, we figured we might as well give them something to practice with before they head to school.”

Ron stepped over to the ice cream bar and was handed a rather large bag from behind the counter. Nicholas had no idea what could be in a bag that big.

“Go ahead you two, open it up already.”

Nicholas took one more look at Ron before reaching into the bag with Eldan. He felt a smooth handle and instantly knew what it was. Eldan must have as well, because they both quickly pulled out what was in their hands.

“Brooms!” You bought us brooms!” they exclaimed at the same time.

Nicholas noticed that their mom seemed to be in as much shock as they were.

“Happy Christmas, boys. They aren’t top of the line, but they will do you just fine. I can even get some of my nieces and nephews around for you two to practice with if you want.”

Nicholas didn’t know what to say, and it would seem Eldan couldn’t either.

“I’m sure they would love that,” Momma replied for them.

Nicholas nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off his broom. What had started out as a terrible day promising nothing anguish and neglect turned out to be more of a Christmas miracle than he could have ever dreamed up.

“Thank you, George. And Ron. For everything.”

Nicholas smiled and sipped on his cocoa.

Momma was right. It was going to be okay.

One day, it would be okay.

And that day was today.


End file.
